‘Satan’ Santa Hears Son Urge Maximum Time In Child Rape Judge Gives Tearful 72-Year-Old 26-1/2-Year Sentence For Attacks
A 72-year-old former shopping mall Santa Claus hung his head and wept Friday as his son asked that his father be given the maximum sentence for child rape.
“I was Satan,” Ronald Carroll McDonald later sobbed as he apologized to his family and to relatives and friends of his victims in the courtroom. “I know everyone wishes me hell.”
McDonald pleaded guilty in November to four counts of first-degree child rape and three charges of first-degree child molestation. King County Superior Court Judge Norma Huggins sentenced him to the maximum prison term of 26-1/2 years.
His lawyer, Michael Danko, said McDonald realized he was effectively receiving a life sentence.McDonald, of suburban Lake Forest Park, was arrested in October after family members confronted him about molesting a young relative.
A former janitor at the University of Washington Medical Center, McDonald played Santa for years at the Lake Forest Park Towne Centre and was a volunteer child-care worker at the Seattle hospital and at his church.
The charges against him involved four children under 11 years of age, one of them a 6-year-old girl who is related to McDonald, in incidents dating back to 1994, investigators said.
In court documents, prosecutors say McDonald admitted to police that his sexual contacts with children extended over the past 60 years and included at least 45 victims.
His son, Craig, quietly but firmly told the court that his father should receive the maximum sentence.
“Our family was raised in a loving way,” he said, glancing only briefly at his father. “While my dad has done many loving things, it’s been proven that even good people can do bad things to good people.”
Huggins granted a defense request that McDonald be recommended for confinement at the state’s treatment center for sexual offenders. Danko said McDonald wanted to make himself available to researchers studying the causes of sexual deviancy.
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